


the lottery

by arbitrarily



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: "Time for a Blood Sacrifice": The Fic, Alternate Universe - Ready Or Not Fusion, F/M, Gen, Implied Sibling Incest, Ritual Human Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: The Roys made their money the old way: blood, and a pact with the Devil.
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	the lottery

**Author's Note:**

> This is all your doing, [reogulus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus)! Thank you for planting this idea in both my mind and my ask box, lol. 
> 
> I not only blended canon with the _Ready or Not_ premise (aka when you marry into the family, you have to draw a card to play a game; if you draw the Hide and Seek card, you're gonna get murdered to fulfill a literal devil's bargain), but also merged the ~blood sacrifice plot-line with Shiv's wedding to Tom. Everything else here is just batshit AU territory, lol.

"The rich really are different."   
READY OR NOT

The day of her wedding is cold and gray, the threat of sun lost behind gloomy cloud cover. The castle looms behind them.

“I still can’t fucking believe it,” Roman says. His mouth is clenched in a Stockholm Syndrome _blink twice if you need rescue_ grimace-and/or-smile for the camera. “You’re willing to risk that block of moldy Wisconsin cheddar’s life, all so you can get a ring on it. That’s cold, even for you, sis.”

“Fuck off.” Shiv stands up that much straighter, lording her advantage in height over him. “We both know the odds favor him. Besides, it’s probably all bullshit.”

“Sure, yeah, yup, definitely. All bullshit. You still slashed a goat’s throat every full moon until you were eighteen, but, yeah. That was all probably bullshit, too.”

Shiv glares at Roman then turns back to the photographer. On her opposite side, Kendall remains silent. She forces her mouth into a wide grin. It’s the happiest day of her life.

To be blessed in this life, to make money, you have to be willing to spill a little blood. Or, in their father’s case, a lot.

The Roys made their money the old way: blood, and a pact with the Devil. The terms, non-negotiable. The cost? To be collected when due.

At midnight, their guests dismissed, they sit around the table together as a family. Tom has been giddy since the vows, desperately happy or desperate to be happy—she cannot parse if there is a difference.

During the reception she had considered breaking her own rule. She thought about telling him. There was a chance, she had told their mother, a brief aside at the rehearsal dinner as much as a brief resumption of barely simmering mutual hostilities, that Tom would never have to know.

“Yes, but, darling. When your father requires the lot of you to take up knives and descend upon his next luckless quarry, I imagine you will have to tell him then.”

What Shiv did not say was what she believed, sincerely, the way she believed in very little. By then, she thought, Tom would love her enough. She would be safe. He would do anything she asked of him. Even this.

“I draw a card? What fun! The game, as they say, is afoot!”

“Just take the card, Tom.”

Tom clutches the box in his hands. All eyes are on him, varying shades of expectant and impatient, dread stark and obvious on Kendall's as he purposefully looks only at Logan. It’s only one card, Shiv tells herself. There’s only one to avoid. A card flips to the surface of the box and Tom picks it up.

“It’s—it’s blank,” he says. Shiv snatches the card out of his hand, and sure enough. She turns it over in her hands, and nothing. There’s nothing there, certainly no Hide and Seek. She starts to laugh, despite herself. It’s her turn to feel giddy now, nearly light-headed with relief.

She sobers quickly. Across the table, Logan is very still. The expression on his face is both dark and unreadable. Frowning, Shiv glances back around the table. No one else matches him; everyone else has relaxed. Everyone but Kendall.

“I don’t get it,” Greg is saying while Tom is mid-complaint: “It’s a shame, really. I am quite good at the old board game. Nothing better than a fine evening of Monopoly. Chinese Checkers.”

“Jesus Christ, would you please shut the fuck up,” Roman groans.

Shiv is still watching their father. “What?” she finally says.

“A word, Siobhan.”

When she gets to her feet, a brief pat afforded to Tom’s shoulder, she finds Kendall’s attention has shifted to her. She wants to call what she sees there pity. She wants to hate him for it.

“So, what’s the deal?”

Logan steers her further down the hall, away from the rest of the family. He still has yet to answer her.

“The blank card, Dad. What the fuck’s that about?”

He exhales slowly and he rubs briefly at his forehead. It’s the only confirmation of any discomfort he might feel. “A blood sacrifice. That’s what that card’s the fuck about.”

“I thought—no. That’s the, that’s the other card. He didn’t draw that card.”

“It’s dealer’s choice. And you, the bride, are,” he gestures towards her. “You have the power. You choose who will live and who will die tonight. A blood debt is owed, and now it’s time to pay.” His mouth twists, rueful and almost impressed. “That Mr. Le Bail, he’s a crafty fuck. He knows, it’s not only blood worth taking from a person, but their pain. The weight of it. A choice. A fucking choice.”

“Choose what?” Her voice threatens to crack. She curls her hands into the folds of her skirt and her eyes feel wet.

“New blood or old. A Roy’s. Your husband, or the heir. My successor.”

Kendall. She says his name. Logan's only reaction is a lift of his chin.

“It’s a tough choice.” He looks at her and it is the cruelest thing he has done yet. He looks at her as if he expects her to be able to make it. “It’ll be you to raise the blade.”

Shiv shakes her head. “I can’t choose, Dad.”

“You have to.” He steps closer. “You have to be a killer, Pinky.” The only outward affection he grants her is his hand, cupped along her cheek. “It’s on you, yes? Or,” and his mouth tips up. He leans in closer. “We want the sun to rise again, don’t we?” Her nod is as much of her own will as his. His hand falls away and he pulls back from her.

“I’ll tell Colin,” he says. “He’ll ready the room.”

Her father called her a coward, before. Back when she told him she was going to marry Tom. He didn’t say it that night, but later. Venomous, as if it was him that was insulted and not her.

He does not call her it again, but it’s there, hanging in the air as he departs down the hall.

They both know who she’ll choose.

She finds Kendall down at the boathouse. He is alone, smoking a cigarette. There’s that defeatist slump to his shoulders he’s had for a good long while now, but when he spots her, silhouetted in the mouth of the tunnel, he stands up straighter. He watches her approach. He makes a breathless, hitching noise, the first hiccup of an incredulous laugh, as she comes closer. He takes one last drag off his cigarette before he flicks it into the water.

She stops in front of him. Neither says anything; water laps against the empty rowboat. She comes closer. She raises a hand to his face, stubble rough beneath her palm.

He’s broken already. That’s what she tells herself. Their father has already broken him. All she would be doing is putting him out of his misery. A mercy kill. She exhales noisily, the same sound the gasping start of a sob would make, her breath fanning against his face. This is mercy. She tips her forehead to his and her fingers dig in along his jaw. He still does not touch her.

“Don’t make me fucking say it,” she says. Her voice shakes.

Kendall grabs her then, a cruel grip at her hip before his fingers immediately loosen. He rubs her there, against her, the lace shifting against her, and then he drops his hand back down to his side.

“No,” he says. His eyes are open, sad and glassy and already resigned. “I know.”

Shiv has only been in this room once. Connor’s mother died here.

Across the room Kendall is undoing his cufflinks. He does it carefully and neatly. She can picture it clearly, Kendall going through the same motions in his own apartment. His office. The cufflinks first, the shirtsleeves rolled next. He takes his watch off too and he sets it on the mantel. A man, doomed, arranging his own death. The knife is in her hand and her fingers sweat around the gilded hilt. She can almost imagine he’s already dead.

Kendall opens his shirt. “You have to say the words,” he says. “To start.”

Shiv’s mouth is dry. She swallows rapidly several times. She comes around the side of the table towards him. She says the opening words to the ritual, familiar but halting and stumbling, her tongue too thick for the Latin. She has never had to do this alone. In truth, she knows, she has never had to do anything alone. The fire behind Kendall leaps to life. Where the room was cavernous and mausoleum cold when they entered, it is now burning hot. She looks down; she does not want to see the fire. She doesn’t want to see him. The hem of her wedding dress is muddied and stained, ripped where her shoes caught in the lace.

Kendall says the next words for her. He lays down on the carved table for her, too. She stands over him. She raises the knife.

“Look at me.” Shiv freezes, her body damp with sweat. Her eyes are closed. “Fucking look at me.” She relents, she looks at him. The flames are reflected in his eyes, gleaming, as they fix on her. She recognizes it immediately, a low swoop in her gut: he is not afraid.

“He translated it wrong, you know,” Kendall says, his voice low, a barely audible murmur. “The text, for the ritual.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“A Roy’s blood, that’s what he said, right? The heir’s?”

Shiv doesn’t say anything. He takes her silence for ascent.

“It doesn’t have to be a successor. It only has to be an heir.”

“What’re you—what are you saying?” Shiv hasn’t lowered the knife, and the muscle in her arm trembles. Her fingers feel stiff.

“I could do it.” His voice is so quiet she can hear the wet in his mouth as his throat works, can barely hear him over the crackle of the fire. He sounds like he is trying to convince himself as much as her. “I know what to do.”

It only has to be an heir. She knows the stories—Uncle Noah and the deal he struck with Mr. Le Bail. The handshake that landed them this monstrous windfall. This debt. The family and the money and the responsibility, all of which Logan inherited first.

“Give me the knife, Shiv.” She has never seen her brother so composed. Her jaw trembles. She feels herself lower the knife until the curled ridge of her knuckles sits against his breastbone, his skin wet with sweat, the blade flat down the center of his ribs. His hand covers hers. He squeezes.

He moves quickly then. He gets to his feet, the knife pointed at her. She thinks only as she can, as she would do, and she assumes the worst. He's fucked her over, same as she was willing to fuck him. She does not back away, but instead stands there, an animal trapped.

Kendall presses the point of the knife against her own breast. He traces a line over her heart, hard enough to draw blood. If it hurts, she does not feel it.

"There’s only one thing you need to do,” he says. He lowers the knife. He steps into her, his body flush with hers. He kisses her on the forehead, the cheek, and then her lips, dry but not chaste. With a tenderness that strikes her as both perfect and wrong, and she lets him. When he pulls back from her, he has her blood on both his shirt and his skin.

“Go get Dad.”

Shiv moves away from Kendall slowly, more afraid now than when she held the knife. Her fingers curl around the doorknob. A terrible exhilaration chokes her around the throat. She opens the door. She calls for their father, and he comes.


End file.
